Historically, the government has considered broadcasting an all-important part of Canadian national security and even "military defense strategy" (Armstrong, 2010, p. 207). For example, during wartime, foreign ownership of Canadian broadcasting could be used for propaganda purposes. In the present day, Canadian ownership rules are seen as important for protecting Canada's cultural sovereignty. By the Broadcasting Act of 1991, the Government of Canada is required to guarantee Canadian ownership of Canadian broadcasting. There is a widely held view that Canadian media entities share the Government of Canada's goals and cooperate with the government more compared …show more content…
List and briefly explain the three different types of industrial concentration.
Horizontal integration occurs when a firm acquires other firms in the same part of its market that it works in. If an organization active in some sector of the media industry buys other media outlets in that sector, this is horizontal integration.
Vertical integration occurs when a firm takes control of part or all of the production process outside the firm. Thus, it owns more and more of its supply chain. In the communications industry, production, scheduling, distribution, etc. are stages of the production process, and if a company controls two or more of these stages it is practicing vertical integration.
Finally, cross-media ownership occurs when a media company acquires one or more mass media outlets "in the same market" (Armstrong, 210, p. 209). Any media conglomerate like Comcast, the Walt Disney Company, or Time Warner is an example of cross-media …show more content…
The Act declares that media programming in Canada must be diverse and all-inclusive, i.e. that it must have a wide variety of content that fully matches the diversity of Canadian society. This is because citizens in general -- "men, women and children of all ages, interests, and tastes" -- must be able to use Canadian media for "information, enlightenment and entertainment" (Armstrong, 2010, p. 212, citing Government of Canada, 1991). Furthermore, the media plays many essential roles for the citizen, like reporting the news, discussing social and political issues, and raising citizen participation in public decisions and the democratic process. For this reason, the Broadcasting Act demands that the public should at least have a good chance to access "differing views on matters of public concern" (Armstrong, 2010, p. 212, citing Government of Canada, 1991). In addition, the Broadcasting Act specifically states that independent media (controlled neither by the government nor by corporations) must have a strong presence in Canadian